


lover, please do not (fall to your knees)

by serinesaccade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward First Times, F/F, Genderbending, Mutual Pining, lesbiamis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:29:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serinesaccade/pseuds/serinesaccade
Summary: "Brave our company for one night.”Grantaire groans. “Your activist friends? Have you met me? Pretty much the only good thing I’m going to do for the environment is turn into fertilizer when I die.” Just her body. She supposes the soul went—somewhere else. She has evidence of that.“It doesn’t have to always be about the activism,” Joly says. “Okay, so it is. But the people are,” something goes soft in his face, “the people are the best you have ever met, R.”Grantaire picks at a hangnail until it bleeds. “You don’t know who I’ve met.” She’s certain she’s already met the best people, and that she is about to be reintroduced. “Maybe Napoleon,” Grantaire offers, to be a little shit.Eyes widening, Joly whispers, “he had scabies.”“Yes, that was the main problem with Napoleon.”Joly just says, “see, this is why you should come, you sound exactly like one of the club members.”Who complains about Napoleon in this day and age, explodes through Grantaire’s head.“Huh,” she considers. “You know, if it’s a Tuesday, I could stand to get drunk and drag on historical figures.”Or: reincarnated lesbiamis
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 80





	lover, please do not (fall to your knees)

**Author's Note:**

> *crackling of a handheld radio* be prepared for my usual ridiculousness but mostly angst and enjoltaire  
> fair warning that if you saw me ranting about lesbiamis on tumblr this is not necessarily in that AU. I have many lesbiami dreams. many of them are much more fluffy than this fic. do i want more fluffy lesbiamis. yes, all the time. but unfortunately *tosses computer over shoulder* I have so much crap to do  
> special guest star for this fic: my extremely obvious bisexuality

Perhaps it’s poetic, that Grantaire remembered her past life at sixteen, when she drank too much for the first time. When she woke up in the morning she had no recollection of the house party the night before. She did, however, know with bone-deep certainty that she had once been a French alcoholic, the outcast among the outcasts, and died shot through the chest while holding the hand of the man he’d have called his god.

Grantaire at sixteen was, as anyone could guess from the heavy underage drinking and drugs, not doing much better in this lifetime. The universe can’t foreshadow her downward spiral after she’d already hit terminal velocity in this free-fall. The knowledge didn’t even serve much purpose—not even a help in history class, because high school didn’t care much for righteous revolutionaries from France.

Sometimes she woke up crying, in a cold sweat, had to stumble to the bathroom to trace her right hand over her chest until she was sure it was whole. Always her right. That’s the one Enjolras had touched.

The only thing it helps with is art, or dance, and even those were sometimes useless because—because the paint was _different_ and the dance stylings are a few centuries, an entire culture, and several thousand miles removed from what was popular then. Nobody else had to crush whole parts of themselves down to make space for a new life, to build themselves on an already shaky foundation of ruins.

Grantaire’s fine now. She’s fine. (Grantaire’s not fine, and wasn’t before this, either.)

But it never impacted anyone else, at least until she lifted her eyes up from her easel in a studio and saw Eponine. Her name wasn’t Eponine, and neither was her face. But it was— _Eponine_ , in a way more important than anything else.

She took the stool beside her in the next class. Asked her a few questions, made a few jokes. Eponine was happy to bullshit, was happy to share nothing of value, glazed and fired in that protective sheen to disguise her, and whatever was inside.

For all her secrets, there was one thing Grantaire was sure she wasn’t hiding: Eponine didn’t remember.

No one did.

* * *

“I am braving a café that failed a health inspection in the last twenty years, R! A _health inspection_. I think you can brave our company for one night.”

Grantaire groans. “With your activist friends? Have you met me? Pretty much the only good thing I’m going to do for the environment is eventually turn into fertilizer when I die.” Just her body. She supposes the soul went—somewhere else. She has evidence of that.

“It doesn’t have to always be _about_ the activism,” Joly says, to which Grantaire snipes,

“It’s college, we don’t _need_ excuses to drink and party with friends. Besides, if I did, there are about twenty frats.”

“Okay, so it is about the activism,” Joly admits easily. “But I’ve seen your art! You care about the activism. And also the people are,” something goes soft in his face, “the people are the best you have ever met, R.”

Grantaire closes her eyes, and picks at a hangnail until it bleeds. “You don’t know who I’ve met.” Poor decisions aren’t the result of Grantaire’s stupidity, just her lack of self-control. She knows who they are. Yes, she’s certain she’s already met the best people, and that she is about to be reintroduced.

“Oh really?” Says Joly. “Who?”

“Mother Theresa,” Grantaire says, to be a little shit. “Keanu Reeves.”

“He’s immortal!” Joly says, brightening. “Don’t you think about what it’d be like, being immortal? You, and me, and the crew?”

“No,” Grantaire watches the blood bead on her thumb, distant, and hides it under the table before Joly can see it. “Jolllly, trust me, people should blaze bright and then go out. Can you imagine if dicks like Napoleon were still marching around?”

Eyes widening, Joly whispers, “he had _scabies_.”

“Yes, exactly, that was the main problem with Napoleon.”

Tapping her in quick succession with his cane, Joly says, “see, this is why you should come, you sound _exactly_ like one of the club members.”

 _Who complains about Napoleon in this day and age_ , explodes through Grantaire’s head, and before she can crush it, hope she didn’t even know she possessed claws its way out of her murky, wine-red depths.

“Huh,” she considers. “You know, if it’s a Tuesday, I could stand to get drunk and drag on historical figures.”

“Perfect,” Joly says, “I’ve already texted the groupchat. Oh, oh, that pre-law student I’ve told you about is excited to meet you with _ten_ exclamation points.” _Courfeyrac_.

“Well shit,” Grantaire swoons, “ten? Throw in a gif and I guess I have to go.”

“Screaming Jonah Hill gif,” says Joly smugly, like that’s that.

Her heart keeps buoying up, and she tries to shove it down. Drown it. Back to the deep.

But that’s that.

* * *

Enjolras doesn’t remember.

Enjolras does, in this day and age, rant passionately about the flaws of Napoleon.

Grantaire should’ve seen that coming. That, and the other inevitability.

Everything about Enjolras has changed, except for the general stunning impression of Enjolras’ entire personhood. In a past life Enjolras had been blonde, blue-eyed, tall and unfairly built, wavy hair a halo about a flawless face. Avenging angel.

Now Enjolras is thinner, and somehow taller, darker, with short springy-soft curls and shining coal eyes. Dignified, she looks like a perfectly inked, freshly-wet line on a parchment. Delicate in stillness. Grantaire isn’t fooled for a single second. Grantaire doesn’t fool herself either.

By the end of the night they’ve already snapped at each other, Enjolras ablaze, and Grantaire knows it will be worse. Before, she didn’t know what it was to be allowed to hold her hand. Hope was purely theoretical. Hope existed because Enjolras said so.

Grantaire’s never been good with religion. What’s a year of tense acquaintance, for them? The time flies by. Giggling nights with Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta; days and sleepy afternoons and long conversations with Eponine and Jehan. Enjolras, trying her hardest to be tolerant of her ABC's newest and most obnoxious addition, reaching out with a hesitance and underlying tension that is painfully obvious. She should be spared.

No one remembers, but no one needs to. Only Grantaire has to be mired. Marooned, quiet and watching the others grow, desperate to live, trying her best to annoy life into throwing her its scraps. There has to be a way to squeeze herself into this time, this body, this personhood. Grantaire tries. She has to try.

If the squeezing happens by shoving herself through the neck of a bottle, sometimes, then so be it.

* * *

When she wakes, she doesn’t remember the particulars of the evening’s ABC house party, just knows it happened. A blur of colors and games and ABBA music and always Enjolras. Enjolras smiling at Ferre and absently brushing a hand through her hair and saying beautiful, terrible things about the world that Grantaire wishes were true.

The hole in her chest is caving, collapsing. It wakes her, the gaping sear of it, and she stumbles to the bathroom so she can feel and see that she’s whole. She forgets, for a moment, that this is Jehan’s home, Jehan’s bed she’d crashed in. They make a little hum, and she lays a shaking hand atop their shoulder all wrapped up in blankets.

“Go back to sleep, sleep, sleep.”

Joly doesn’t like sleeping at other people’s houses, but Bossuet had hurt her foot, so she’s wrapped up in Musichetta through the dark doorway of the other bedroom. They don’t stir. Nobody does, as Grantaire stumbles down the hall, one hand a tourniquet and the other scrambling along the wall for purchase.

Someone’s in the bathroom. Grantaire’s hand feels wet with blood, and someone’s in the bathroom, and—

The light peering out from the gap above the floor flickers off. The door opens slow and quiet. Considerate, as always, so it’s either Combeferre or—

“R?” At house parties in the past she’s crawled over people to get into the bathroom and puke. She’s shoved and wheedled and picked the fucking lock, peed while someone got high behind the shower curtain.

She won’t touch Enjolras.

“Please move,” she hisses, finally.

“R, are you—“ She’s looking at the hand, at that gaping chest. “Are you alright?”

“Bathrooms are a human right,” Grantaire snaps. She means it as a joke, a _out of my way_ , a _chips and salsa are a human right so pass em over._ Judging by the acid in her own stomach and the outrage on Enjolras’ face she’s instead accidentally trivialized—she didn’t _mean to_ —“Shit, sorry, I didn’t…please, Apollo.”

Maybe she’d fight. Or dig deeper. But—but Enjolras is in her way, and Grantaire needs to get in there to remind herself that regardless of the way she feels, from the outside she looks whole.

No matter the place, or the late hour, or the _century_ , Enjolras would fight her. Today, she steps aside.

Jehan keeps a little nightlight in the bathroom, some gaudy trinket that glows gentle green. That’s all Grantaire keeps on, that unreal color bathing her in the dark. A hand over her ribcage, clutching. Heavy breathing and straining heartbeat that slows, the longer she stares herself down in the mirror.

Her hair isn’t quite so dark, her shoulders are narrower. Her hand lays on the curve of her breast, and her face is still displeasing, but not for its ruggedness.

 _My name is not Grantaire_ , she reminds herself. She does not tell herself _I am whole_ , because she’s not. A long time ago she ripped a hole in the bottom of herself to shake all the shards of _Grantaire_ out, but some stuck. Some of her fell through. It’s an imperfect system.

When there’s a gentle knock, it nearly jumpstarts her heart.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hisses, gripping the counter. When she turns, and opens the door, she’s expecting Jehan, rubbing sleep from their eyes.

It’s Enjolras. Staring down from above. “I got you some water.”

Somehow, she ends up—sitting on the fuzzy blue-leopard-print toilet lid, sipping lukewarm tapwater. From above, Enjolras spurs her on, waiting until the cup is empty. She takes it, sets it on the counter. Rethinks, refills it, hands it back.

“Bad dream?”

“When people _drink_ ,” Grantaire enunciates carefully, “they get _ill_. I know it’s very messy and—“

“You’re sober tonight.”

This is precisely why Grantaire is supposed to drink. So she doesn’t have nightmares, or remember a past life, or be questioned like this.

“Yeah,” she says, finally. “I had a bad dream.”

“Do you want to,” the cadence is off, in a way that Enjolras’ speeches never are, “talk about it?”

Throwing her water back, wishing it was whiskey, Grantaire shakes her head. But this is—this is the closest Enjolras can get to being softly kind. Being intensely caring. It isn’t often directed at Grantaire. The feeling’s addictive, and she doesn’t want to talk but she doesn’t want it to _end_ , doesn’t want Enjolras to leave this liminal green-glowing space, all wrapped up in quiet.

“Talk to me?” Grantaire says instead.

Blinking, Enjolras says, “about what?”

“C’mon, you never stop with your causes but can’t think of a word when I give you a full pass?”

Enjolras’ jaw sets, that perfect thing. “Fine,” she murmurs, all light and feminine and deadly, “I was just reading about the gender data gap and how it contributes to inequality. You can hear about that.”

Sighing, setting her spine up against the cold porcelain of the toilet, Grantaire listens. At some point Enjolras pauses. Says _you shouldn’t sleep here_.

“Not sleeping,” Grantaire hums, cracking open one eye. “Listening. Obviously.”

And maybe that’s the moment. The one which leads to incomprehensible things. “Are you?” Enjolras asks.

“Um,” says Grantaire. “Yes?” She’s not whip smart or passionate, but information is entertainment as much as anything else. She likes to prod her brain with anything that can make it feel. The gender data gap is spiky enough to swing and get some brain juice flowing. “I always listen. It’s taking things to heart that’s the problem, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Enjolras states, firm.

“I’ve said as much,” Grantaire snorts. “Now who’s not listening?”

Enjolras doesn’t really reply. Just takes the cup now that it’s empty, again, and holds it in flawless fingers.

“Do you want to listen,” she says, “to me.”

Grantaire has been shot just to hear _I permit it_. “I listen to very little else.”

“Then _why_ ,” Enjolras fumes, but it fizzles out, quick as it started. Quietly, she finishes, “why don’t you ever try for the cause?” Try anything: believing. Putting herself on the line.

Biting her lip, Grantaire says, “I make your posters and protest and advertise to my college friends when you ask.”

“You have the potential for more!” Enjolras hisses. “I’ve seen it! Time and time again.”

 _You haven’t seen what I’ve seen,_ Grantaire thinks.

“I’m not a walking, talking vat of potential and unmet purpose,” Grantaire mutters. “Nobody is. We’re just little lonely lives in a massive universe. We exist within that and try to be happy. To be satisfied with little justices. Isn’t that enough?”

All Enjolras says in reply to that is: “you should get some sleep.”

Follows her, down the hall, like she’s herding. Like she doesn’t trust Grantaire to make it back to Jehan’s bed by her own power. Jehan rolls, murmuring, but doesn’t wake; Grantaire flops, crowding against their spine as much as the blanket allows, and looks back to Enjolras.

“Thanks for the water,” she whispers. That’s a thing friends say. Grantaire knows how to play at it. But Enjolras doesn’t reply, is a tall line in the dark, all those recognizable smudges to her shadow. Curls above, long legs, shoulders back, willowy and firm and lovely. Maybe—maybe Enjolras got stuck sleeping on the couch. On the floor. She’s too tall for either of those options; Grantaire could swap her, curl up in an armchair. Grantaire could—“do you want the bed? There’s room.” Jehan takes up minimal space, so after Grantaire leaves—

“Okay,” Enjolras is saying. Before Grantaire can roll off, there’s a dip in the mattress, Enjolras’ constant gravity for Grantaire suddenly real. “Thank you.”

“It’s not my bed,” Grantaire manages not to wheeze. But that is her back, burning close to where Enjolras is squeezing in. Those are her fingers, clenching inches away from where Enjolras’ fine ones lay. Hundreds of years, and they’re close again. Lying down together in the dark. “Night.”

“Good night,” Enjolras says. Without a single trace of sarcasm, just clean earnestness: “sweet dreams. This time.”

Grantaire will do anything for her, but her dreams are slippery and slick in their formlessness. She remembers none at all. With Enjolras at her back, it doesn’t matter.

* * *

Jehan is gone when she wakes in the morning, but Enjolras is still there, pillow-propped on one elbow and scrolling political Twitter, the closest to lounging she’ll ever be.

“Hey.” She’s got drymouth. Her shirt’s dwarfing her, but in the sunbeams of the morning there’s nowhere for Grantaire to hide. Enjolras looks over to her, and smiles.

“Sleep well?”

“Mm hmm,” she informs, blearily.

“Good,” says Enjolras, all tidy and neat, God, Grantaire loves her. Grantaire wants to wreck her and preserve her forever all at once. “Jehan’s making waffles.”

“Mm _hmm_ ,” comes out quite different this time. Sniffing the air, discerning the waffles are probably still in their batter life stage and not yet on the griddle, Grantaire stretches out, breathes deep. Late mornings are best. In the morning she can almost forget.

“R,” comes Enjolras’ voice, and it sounds very odd. “You’ll tell me if this makes you unhappy.”

Well, that’s one electrifying way to wake up.

“ _Wha_ ,” says Grantaire, lost, but when she rolls to look, it’s right into Enjolras’ eyes, deceptively calm. There must always be something specific Grantaire adores, in each body the bright soul that is Enjolras occupies. Here it’s the dissonance; Enjolras is ladylike, quieter, cool whispering silk-smooth. All those placid, calligraphic things, with soft comforting doe eyes and a honeyed glaze to her voice—all those things. But Enjolras is still Enjolras. A wildfire at dawn.

When she kisses Grantaire, it burns.

“Well?” She says, after. Like she let Grantaire try a fucking bite of a cookie, not upended two lifetimes of unrequited love.

“Um,” Grantaire breathes. “Not unhappy. Not unhappy at all.”

And Enjolras nods, and smiles a bit stiffly, and then Jehan is calling _R_ _, are you awake, what’s the best temperature setting again?_ So Grantaire stands, and because Enjolras allows it, levers her shoulder to get off the bed. Thumbs over a bared collarbone, helpless. Can hardly look her in the eye, but has to, later, when the waffles are safely piled up on one of Jehan’s eclectic kitchen plates.

“Very happy,” she says, and Bossuet, whose face is full of syrupy waffle and who has not yet been Heimliched, agrees loudly. Maybe it’s embarrassing. But what’s the point? Enjolras has seen her passed out on tables and watched Grantaire watch her at every meeting. Saving face is hopeless. Sucking face is— _well_. Apparently it’s an option now.

They eat their waffles, and Grantaire can almost forget.

* * *

Enjolras kisses her again. Enjolras does much more than that. It doesn’t even take long; just some awkward stares on Grantaire’s part, a slow questioning tilt of Enjolras’ head, an unnecessary trip to Grantaire’s apartment to pick up posters that ordinarily she’d have just hauled to the meeting.

The posters are carefully tucked into Enjolras’ backpack. Grantaire gets tucked up against the wall, and kissed, stuttered and slow.

She has no idea why, but questioning good fortunes when they appear so rarely seems stupid. So Grantaire doesn’t.

“How do you want me?”

That’s a poor question. She wants to be inside her, and all over her, and take Enjolras deep, she wants Enjolras feminine and wet and firm and she wants the Enjolras from those times she never had. From when that Grantaire had looked upon him and imagined pulling off every crisp layer, when he wanted to be inside, and all over, and taken in return _._

So things don’t change. That’s Grantaire’s problem. She never changes, and she dwells on the past.

Enjolras has forgotten, because that is easier, and strides into the glorious dawn of the future.

Grantaire wants to stride. She’s had a lifetime of sleeping with people and she’s lived different bodies, too. If there is one way she can be confident, it’s this.

“Here,” she says, and she’s shaking. If only she wasn’t shaking. She takes a pillow and finds the supplies and kisses Enjolras, just a little. Keeps it dry.

“Come on,” Enjolras says then, breaking off the kiss easily. “R. You have me here.” Another press of their lips, warmer. “Take me.”

That’s easy for Enjolras to say. Enjolras doesn’t know that young and fierce and alive is all she’ll ever be; or if she knows it, it’s from a logical, cold conclusion. Not the bone-deep certainty of blood and bullets, lodged in.

“R,” Enjolras says, desperate, and that’s not fair. What is _desperate_ for Enjolras, a week or so of wanting, a brief high from a party and a rally gone right, for once? Grantaire loved her before she was born. Grantaire has died to hold her hand.

Now she’s asked, she’s finally asked, so Grantaire gives anyway. Unbuttons the red jacket slowly, won’t let Enjolras touch, slides the velvet off and even stands to hang it. Enjolras watches, and waits. When she returns, she lays back, helps pull down her jeans and pull up her shirt, touches Grantaire patiently over the fabric still between them.

“I don’t do this often,” Enjolras says.

“I know.”

Sighing, Enjolras reaches for a hem or a belt buckle. It doesn’t matter which—Grantaire scoots back, shucks it all, and returns. With dark impatient eyes, Enjolras waits.

Maybe if Grantaire of old had his way, Grantaire would better understand how to take Enjolras apart. Or maybe not. Either way, it’s only the warm slide of their skin that staves off the underlying panic.

She goes too fast, or too slow, in alternates.

“There, I think, or—no, not—“

“Show me,” Grantaire pleads. “With your hand.” Enjolras always knows the way.

“I’ve never—“

“ _Never_?”

“Not successfully, like this,” Enjolras bites, and _like what,_ “I—“ she shudders “—maybe? Like that?”

Hundreds of years and a lifetime, to stumble and end up beside her in bed, and Grantaire can’t fucking get it together.

Enjolras doesn’t even seem to mind, alternating between pressing kisses to Grantaire’s lips and looking increasingly determined, like she can bulletpoint or outline or debate her way to satisfaction if only Grantaire is willing to keep trying.

That’s the problem, Grantaire realizes. They’ve made the formal decision to do this without the buildup, without practice or recourse, and Grantaire is only versed in worship. Abandoning the kissing, she slides down, and—there, she thinks, when Enjolras gasps for her, shakes and shines, this is how it should be. When Enjolras settles, breathing hard, unfurling, she takes the moment for herself.

At the very least, Grantaire knows how to treat her own body. Her practiced fingers are rough and punishing. Unlike any other time, she doesn’t have to imagine Enjolras. Enjolras is already here. Here, and struggling up to her elbows to watch Grantaire across the sheets, something softer than a scowl forming.

It’s easy, when Enjolras is watching. Even when the expression Enjolras gives her, after, is too familiar: disappointment.

Her heart no longer beats, just crumples in on itself again and again, a soggy origami heart.

“It was bad,” she says softly. “Don’t worry, angel, I’m going.”

A hand snakes out, grabs her own. “ _No_. Please.” Stiffly, voice rough, she says, “we can learn each other. I,” she clears her throat. “I’ll get better.”

With Enjolras, there is only ever _better_. Worrying about that is pointless. Grantaire is reeling just from the implication that Enjolras thinks she could have ever been the problem. Shocked enough that, when Enjolras squeezes her hand and lowly says, “lie down?” Grantaire does it.

Enjolras pulls, and Grantaire goes forward, a dancer in every way—until they stop you, you follow, you move. And Enjolras doesn’t stop her, not until Grantaire is pressed up against her chest, ear pressed just beneath her collarbone.

“Comfortable?” Grantaire asks. Running a hand down her spine, Enjolras says,

“Yes.”

A drumming heartbeat beneath her ear, against her cheek, the rally cry of however many wars Enjolras has already lost. Before she was a French alcoholic Grantaire was a Greek, she thinks—the lives before the last are dreamier, cloaked in mist, forest groves on far-off hills. Grantaire as a Frenchman remembered being Greek. But he drowned more than crushed that life, took those marble pillars and let a bitter tide of alcohol wash over till the lake surface was smooth. She wonders if, as a Greek, she’d been permitted to love Enjolras from this close.

Something in her says it’s the first time.

* * *

Normally Grantaire sleeps fitfully, but she sleeps through the night and all the way up until Enjolras starts stroking her hair.

“Good morning,” she says placidly, when Grantaire’s eyes fly open to meet hers.

“’Morning.”

They lay, for a few moments, until Enjolras slides down a little ways on the pillow and presses their lips together. “I was wondering if you were amenable to some practice.”

It takes everything in Grantaire to not ask, _of what?_ To instead pretend to be sure.

This time, Enjolras wants to be above, which Grantaire knew would happen. Enjolras does not demand to lead, but instead takes control when there’s none to be had. Of course, she does it well. Presses Grantaire down into the pillows with a scrambling surety. _Here?_ Her hands on Grantaire’s waist, in her hair, question. _You want me here_. The answer is always yes. Grantaire wonders when Enjolras will figure out that it’s not serendipity or informative porn that leads to every successful touch; when Enjolras will know there is no place her hands can fall that is wrong.

“Do you,” Enjolras pants in half-question.

Desires or protection or doubts or lube, Grantaire has it. So “yes,” she says, “yes, yes.”

In the objectivity of a stranger, it could be said this time goes better. With limited practice, Enjolras figures out how to press, what to whisper, when to use teeth or tongue. She looks determined, still, and Grantaire doesn’t know what to make of that. Above Enjolras’ desk there is a clock, but above their breathing and the rustle and _shhh_ of skin on skin, Grantaire can’t hear the ticking. _When will you return to the things that matter_ , Grantaire thinks.

Maybe that’s the problem, she realizes, arching and crying out. Maybe Enjolras doesn’t know she only has limited time.

* * *

Enjolras laughs, and cuddles close, and meets her for coffee and lunch and for those invented contrivances people make up, just to pretend there’s a reason to see one another. She lets Grantaire sift through her dark curls with calloused fingers. Press palm to palm. They squabble and pounce and there’s the good kind of bite and the bad. Enjolras lets Grantaire do everything. Who is Grantaire to complain, that there must be an end to it? That when Enjolras no longer tolerates her or a cause snags that glorious attention, there will be no more times? There’s an end to everything. And later, when Grantaire reincarnates again and Enjolras has forgotten any detail she might have cared to remember—

Well. Grantaire will always have these days.

* * *

At the next meeting, everything has flipped. Unfortunately, Grantaire’s slouched into her familiar seat out of habit before realizing it.

From the table to her right, the triumvirate beacons out. From where she sits, to the left of Courfeyrac, Enjolras slips her a smile. Now Grantaire sits at the front of the room. She’s meant to be confined to the shadows of Enjolras’ sun in the Musain, not—not hung aloft here beside them. Grantaire is not meant to fly.

Standing, and speaking, Enjolras elevates, as she always does. Grantaire gathers close her bottle, and squeezes her eyes tight, and wonders if she ever had a life unhaunted by the one before. If there’s ever been a version of her that didn’t love Enjolras with the dry heaving of a war lost long ago.

“Hey,” says Enjolras, when the meeting’s over, “I’ll walk you home?”

On the way, her hand empty just a few inches from Grantaire’s empty right hand, the one clenching around that vastness like a bloodless heart, Enjolras says, “what are you doing the first week of June?”

Grantaire stops walking. “This may shock you, but I plan my life out about twenty minutes in advance, max.”

“Please,” Enjolras huffs, but won’t be distracted. “I ask because it’s Pride month, and there’s rumblings of nationwide rallies after the proposition vote at the end of May.”

Being a prophet is useless; knowing the past makes Grantaire feel infinitely more certain.

Certain of something going very, very badly. Suddenly, her own realism isn’t enough. Suddenly, Enjolras’ idealism is a bright and shining beacon that will direct all hateful eyes at her.

Enjolras has only just allowed Grantaire to be close, and already the universe is demanding blood. Would it be so impossible, for Enjolras to see thirty, to make a softer impact over a larger time for balance?

Squeezing their fingers so tightly she can feel their fine bones, Grantaire says, “come over.”

She means to discourage Enjolras, once they arrive. To sit her down, and pour her tea, and softly plead _please. Be careful_.

But Enjolras hangs over her shoulder while the water boils, makes a curious noise against the shell of her ear when Grantaire pulls out a thermometer.

“Well,” Grantaire explains. “Sometimes, things work better if you don’t take them to extremes.” Steeping tea. Judgments. Lives.

“You’re very serious about tea,” Enjolras says.

“I’m a serious person,” Grantaire snorts, plopping her penguin infuser in, “now let me return to my teabagging.” There is definitely a smile, pressed into the juncture of her neck, and then there’s teeth. She jerks, makes an aborted little gasp, and in return Enjolras sucks harder, rub a soothing thumb at her hipbone through her jeans.

“Wait,” Grantaire breathes. This is a lot to ask of Enjolras, but as expected, she stops. So here it is: Grantaire the skeptic, gathering up her speech. Rallying her weary skeleton troops about a ragged banner. When drunk, Grantaire can spout Hamlet and Othello, can parrot soliloquies and poetry. But those are not her own words, her own convictions laid bare. She tries, she tries, to put her fear for Enjolras, for all of them, into words. That’s what is is—fear. If they go, she loses them. If they don’t go, they’re already long lost; the Les Amis de l’ABC would never stop, never yield. All she manages to say is a cracked, trembling, “please don’t go.”

“R.” Lifting up, Enjolras rotates her around by a belt loop, gentle and steady. Grantaire doesn’t want to turn. Grantaire wants a drink, a smoke, a knock-out round in the ring. “R, look at me.”

Grantaire can place her eyes on Enjolras, in a way that seems like she’s looking—artists look at models all the time in distinct pieces, reduce people to shadows or soft and hard lines. It helps, now.

“I’m here,” Enjolras says, and that wrecks it all. Enjolras is not lines or charcoal or paint; she is soft but so fierce. Alive. “I’m here with you. I told you.”

French Grantaire had never asked, never dared, but Grantaire now has kissed Enjolras and woken up to a shared bed in the morning.

“For how long?”

Enjolras blinks, and then her face contorts, that dear overthinking. “I—I see. That’s… an oversight.”

How else is Grantaire supposed to respond to that, except with abject panic?

“An _oversight_ ,” she laughs. Like Enjolras missed a line in a budget. They’re talking about different things, but Enjolras, as usual, is a million miles away from the realm of love. Grantaire sick to think that Enjolras will die for the cause, again, and Enjolras thinks… well, if Grantaire understood Enjolras in the slightest, a lot of things would be different.

“R,” Enjolras says firmly, entwining their fingers and making the kind of intimidating eye contact Grantaire would expect from a prosecutor, “we are courting.” Is it Grantaire’s fault, that Enjolras rockets her back in time with just a word? That Enjolras doesn’t even _know_ about reincarnation and still speaks like someone shoved her ancient French rebel ass into a DeLorean time machine just this morning?

“The _fuck_.” All of Grantaire’s intentions have run sidelong into a wall. _Courting_? Enjolras has probably had more positive feelings towards her library card over the last few months. Grantaire just wants her to _live_.

Enjolras goes a ferociously windswept pink and corrects, “dating!”

“Are we?”

That jaw locks, like she’s just told Enjolras she’s naïve, but all Enjolras says is, “what would you call what we’ve been doing all this time, R?”

Grantaire is not foolish enough to voice her real answer, which is _an experiment in opposing forces,_ and also _what does ‘all this time’ mean to you_?

Instead, she just stares for a long minute, and finally grins, “ _courting_.”

“Stop!” Enjolras protests, laughing, when Grantaire buries her face into Enjolras’ collarbone and squeezes round her middle. “Do you know how many hours I’ve suffered Cor’s romantic lecturing for you?”

“Bestow upon me his wisdom,” Grantaire hums, though she’s mostly stalling until some part of this begins making sense.

“I don’t know,” Enjolras says darkly, into Grantaire’s curls, “there was a whole coffee meetup devoted to the intricacies of ‘Netflix and chill’ and he didn’t let me get in that you preferred Hulu until an hour later—“

Grantaire cackles, but it’s half hysterical, and that gradually breaks down into “ _the tea_!”

* * *

Their tea is lukewarm, and oversteeped.

“Mm,” says Enjolras charitably, “caffeine.” Giving up on her own, Grantaire puts her head down in Enjolras’ lap and tries to summon up her will from before.

_You know how you just decided you were willing to try dating me?_

_Guess what! I’m a reincarnated alcoholic from the 19 th century with no proof besides vague daily-life factoids that I could’ve researched online! Better yet, I’m convinced you’re the reincarnation of my pathetic unrequited love. _

Grantaire is pretty sure she’d go from Enjolras’ bed to hospital bed in a hot second. So she can’t say that.

 _If you protest in June, you will die. I know this because it’s happened before_.

Vague. Enigmatic. Generally unconvincing. There are no references or statistics, and Enjolras would tear it apart.

“What are you thinking about?” Enjolras asks. If it was anyone else, this could be sappy or romantic or a request for attention. Enjolras asks because she is genuinely interested in whatever topic has Grantaire staring dismally at the ceiling, no matter that it’s mere minutes after she managed to put a tentative label on their relationship.

 _How much I love you_ , Grantaire thinks, and instead she says, “have you ever missed out on a rally or protest?”

“Constantly,” Enjolras says, brow furrowed. If she had the means and more than 24 hours in a day, Enjolras would attend every protest across the entirety of the land.

“But would you,” says Grantaire. “If there was a good enough reason.”

“That depends on the reason,” says Enjolras. Not even on the protest; all causes are worth her attention.

Grantaire doesn’t want to ask if her own peace of mind can serve as Enjolras’ reason. Enjolras does not value peace of mind. Intrinsically, Enjolras opposes it. Rolling her face, she kisses Enjolras’ thigh where there is a sliver of a hope she won’t be seen, where it could be an accidental brush, and stands to gather their empty mugs. Stares, as she walks, at the loose leaves escaped to the bottom. The dark ring where the liquid sat, while she mused and Enjolras sat still for a rare moment.

She’s washing it all away, when from the kitchen door Enjolras says: “what’s your reason, R?”

Grantaire’s purpose is Enjolras, always. She’s getting exhausted of hiding it.

“If you go,” Grantaire breathes shakily, throat constricting, not looking, “you’ll _die_. And don’t—don’t ask me how I know. I _know_. So please. Please stop and ask yourself if it’s worth that. If it’s worth all our lives.”

She has to turn, now. When she does, Enjolras is staring at her. Just staring. Of course—she’s in shock. Anyone would be; anyone would freak out after their maybe-girlfriend started prophesizing death and—

“R,” she says slowly, hushed. “Do you think I don’t know?” Now it’s Grantaire’s turn to stare. “We don’t expect things to be different,” Enjolras is saying. “But we agreed we’d never stop trying. We swore an oath to each other. And it’s been getting better. My hopes are high.”

Before she knows it, she’s taking a step back. Then another. Another. Her back slams into the counter, every knob on the kitchen drawers digging into her skin. The whimper escaping her mouth can use that pain as an excuse.

“Enjolras?” Then, in French: _“is it you?_ ”

Enjolras startles, but it’s with—recognition. Not confusion or concern.

She doesn’t say, _what are you talking about?_ She doesn’t even say, _what language is that?_ No, Enjolras says:

“Why that name?”

“You _knew_ ,” Grantaire chokes out. “You fucking _knew_ this whole time!”

Grantaire died to hold her hand. Grantaire loved her so hard she reincarnated right back at her feet.

They fought at that first meeting. It had seemed poetic. Now it seems—

“How long?” She demands.

“R, calm down,” Enjolras says, lifting two hands in the closest thing to a placating gesture she’s got. “I need you to—to slow down and back up for me.”

Neither of these are Enjolras’ usual demands. Enjolras is _catch up, Grantaire._ Enjolras is _onward_.

“ _How long_?”

“Always.” Enjolras’ jaw works. “R, I need you to—“

“You don’t get to ask anything of me, Enjolras,” Grantaire says numbly, because—was it a joke? Was it a test? _You believed in the cause enough to die for it—but would you live for it again?_ “Grantaire has never been trustworthy enough to share minor details with, Grantaire’s a disappointment yet again, nobody tell Grantai—“

She’s practically jumped. Enjolras pushes forward, covers her lips with one hand instead of the lips Grantaire has just begun to feed her longing for, and hisses, “what are you _saying_?”

“I never would’ve pegged you for a coward,” Grantaire sneers through her fingers, jerking her face away. “Hiding this and refusing to even acknowledge it, how do you expect me to react?”

Silent and still, Enjolras stares again. If Grantaire has to be here for one more instant, she’ll scream, she’ll vomit, she’ll shove herself through the garbage disposal. Outside are her streets, where she’s small and safely meaningless. Where Enjolras can’t find her. Ducking under that still outstretched arm, she begins to flee. She makes the mistake of turning around, of wanting to throw in one more verbal punch, and everything goes to static.

Enjolras is crying.

“You don’t remember,” she says, knees buckling. Godly Enjolras, crouched on the ground, eyes on Grantaire. Apparently Enjolras has seen her shot, and she’s still looking at her like this is heartbreaking. “Oh, _R_ , oh.”

“I think it’s clear that I do,” Grantaire’s voice wobbles out. “That’s the whole problem, really.”

“Is France all you remember?” Enjolras says carefully.

“One extra lifetime is enough!” Grantaire bursts. “Life is the fucking worst invention!” But—Greece, she thinks. Before that, maybe Mesopotamia or Egypt. Small lives, between them, quicksilver and gleaming, dead by twenty. Before that—those woods are deep and dark, the mountain of that life tall and swirling with clouds, trees dead and so thick Grantaire can’t see any sign of life through them. Grantaire now is better than Grantaire in France; French Grantaire spent a lifetime drowning whatever he’d done as a Greek; the Greek knew something, knew too much, had to cut blood from other men; as an Egyptian she’d tried something and failed and paid for it with that life. Before that… before…

“We’ve been trying to make a change for longer than that.” Enjolras is firm, unyielding, even folded up on the floor. “The abuse of human rights never seems to end. There’s always something more to fight for. But this time, I thought—I wanted to actually live. With you. You know how to live. You _want_ to.”

To _live_. Enjolras remembers whole lives, speaks about history like she’s seen it.

Grantaire had always joked about it, but—“Are you human?”

Enjolras blinks at her. “I don’t know.” She looks up, eyes aflame. “Now, I think… maybe. None of us used to be.”

 _None of us_.

“Everyone. They’re all…?”

Enjolras nods. “We were—ancient people had their heroes and gods. Every culture has a Prometheus. Or a group of—of those who want to make change. I think…” She trails, hums. “We were born out of that wish. For people to try and be their best. To defy the world order. And then… never stopped being born.”

“But—no one’s ever,” Grantaire says, faintly. _No one’s spoken of it._

“We didn’t think we had to. We always recognize each other,” Enjolras says carefully. “First sight, and all the lives come back, but not—with you.” She bites her lip. “We didn’t want to frighten you, or dredge up the past. You weren’t there, at the very beginning, you appeared and hung on.” Like a reaction to Enjolras’ existence. Like desperate, horrific balancing of the universe. “We only know it’s you when certain… certain behaviors cycle.”

When she fights and claws at Enjolras because she’s got her gasping heart tucked away in her red coat pocket, already in love.

“Sometimes, in those lives,” Enjolras is saying, “I forgot who I was fighting for. All the faces I’d known, all the injustices, melding together. Of course I care, how can I not, but—the everyday lives of the people around me. They seemed so small, sometimes. In the face of it all. But not to you. Never to you. Now I wonder—“

She’s staring up, unfurling, the perfect line of her drawing to the sky.

“I don’t think Grantaire remembered anything but the life right before, either,” R says. “I don’t think I ever have. I think that would kill me. I think to truly live, I have to be this way.”

Burning in the eyes of the woman in her kitchen is a flame that’s been lit for—for lifetimes. It was impressive enough already. Now it’s terrifying.

“Then why,” says Enjolras, “would you come back to us? To the cause, when you already struggle to believe? When all you knew was one death?”

“ _Why_ ,” R laughs, helpless, and then with rasping, wet hiccups, “you ask me why!” She doesn’t bother to pick up her pieces, because Enjolras has probably seen them all, when she releases: “I may not remember everything, but all I’ve done is be in love.”

“Love?” repeats Enjolras, like it’s a foreign word. Like it’s in none of the languages she’s ever known.

“Maybe we reincarnate for different purposes, angel.” Here, with this knowledge, she can stand. “You, to flip off and decimate the non-denominational gods or whatever power structure is in place at the time. Me, for good people, for paintings, and philosophies and architecture throughout the years, and new dances, all the distractions— and you.”

Enjolras presses her lips together. “ _Last time_?” she whispers, in French. “ _That was the first time?”_

“ _Every time_ ,” R tells her. _“I said I’d black your boots, I said anything, and then I died for you. Is that not a promise kept enough? It was a tragic epic to see, but I had to watch, because it was you.”_

“Oh,” says Enjolras, and she seems far away. Then, instead of the thousands of things she could say, from all their years, she asks: “is this why you don’t say my name?”

R looks up to her, in this little ratty kitchen, at this long-lived god. She thinks: _I’ve loved you and let that hurt you._ That can’t stand.

“I call you Enjolras,” she admits. “In my head. Not—for anything else. Just because he was first, to me. I call myself,” she swallows. “I call myself Grantaire.”

“R,” Enjolras murmurs.

“I shouldn’t,” R acknowledges. “I—I see that I shouldn’t.” There’s too much sorrow in that. It’s giving up. It’s clinging on to a rock in a raging river and being battered against it, instead of risking letting go, believing there are calmer waters ahead. “Let me try?” _For you?_

“Of course,” she breathes, “yes, Blair, of course, that’s healthy—“

They hold each other, and Enjolras and Grantaire melt away, but not all those things they stood for. She buries her face in her lover’s shoulder and thinks of all those things. There is more to life than existing, and fighting. There are warm arms and foreheads pressed together and letting old wounds heal over, stroking at the off-color scars.

“You want to live?” She asks. A nod against her hair, sure as anything, is her answer. “Then let’s live. Together.”

* * *

“Ready?” She says, and their hands join. Before them, the Musain is lit and their friends are just on the other side.

“I’ve been here before,” she reminds. “I’ll be here again, with all of you.”

“All of us,” is agreed, with a kiss. “Come on. They’ve been waiting patiently.”

“Our friends? I doubt it.” She takes a deep breath. They open the door. “Okay, bitches, why’ve we been speaking 21st century _English_ this whole time instead of a glorious mishmash of old-timey French and a bunch of lost dialects—“

They both choose to learn to live.

**Author's Note:**

> there were so many places to go with this fic and then I got tired and then they were in love and I just lay down once that happened. sorry not sorry. i need it out of my head  
> thank you for your comments and any form of interaction with this fic. i'm love you. i AM working on SHSH but tbr this fic was nearly complete before that one even started weeooo  
> Blair is a pretty name and I still hate that I had to snag another name. i literally hate it. i'm sure i slipped up and accidentally had someone call her Grantaire in here  
> merry thanksgiving y'all let's eat  
> [here's my tumblr ](https://serinesaccade.tumblr.com/)


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